A sysadmin’s view of Microsoft’s private cloud promises

Michael Bullwinkle, a university systems engineer, reports back from the …

At last week's Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas, Microsoft execs tried to pitch their vision for cloud computing to the 5,300-plus systems administrator attendees of the meeting. They promised that the shiny new features of Microsoft System Center 2012 will revolutionize our lives. In the keynote, the features all demoed perfectly.

But we weren't there for the keynotes—we were there for the education sessions. Sessions are about reality—how we take the System Center software and make it work in our environments, with a limited budget and resources. This isn't to say the MMS crowd doesn't get excited about Microsoft's management products—we do, and we know that's weird. (Talk at the closing party for MMS included discussion of who got their photo taken with Wally Mead—"He’s like the father of ConfigMgr!”) We just happen to be the same people who have spent more of our lives reading Microsoft knowledge base articles and banging our heads against obscure errors than we would like to talk about.

As Anderson stood on stage during his keynote and spelled out Microsoft's definition of a private cloud, everyone was listening, but this wasn't exactly news. Microsoft has been pumping up its place in the cloud for the last four years at MMS.

Microsoft's definition of "cloud," as presented by Anderson

Microsoft

To Microsoft, "private cloud" is really just using Windows Server and System Center 2012 together to create a more automated, flexible set of services.

While the vision that Anderson pitched puts Microsoft at the center, it is based on the same National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines for cloud computing—guidelines that don't explicitly include virtualization as a requirement. NIST's definition has been adopted by most of the IT industry, with the possible exception of VMware, the target of Microsoft's recent "Tad Talks" spoof ad campaign and a series of veiled jabs during the keynote. (It's probably not in VMware's best interests to embrace a definition that leaves room for the possibility of achieving cloud-level service and functionality without using virtualization.)

Microsoft isn't going to unseat VMware overnight. Based on informal hand-raising during sessions and conversations with attendees later in the week, most of us are using a combination of hypervisors—with VMware still very much at the forefront. But Microsoft has moved to take over the management of the cloud by adding integration support under the hood of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 for hypervisors like VMware ESX, Citrix Xenserver 6, and Hyper-V.

Microsoft's private cloud strategy uses the "foot-in-the-door "approach. Once you implement one of the System Center products successfully, it starts making sense to implement more. The more Microsoft products you use in your data center, the more attractive Hyper-V becomes.

But just how much success will Microsoft have convincing users to adopt VMM? The lack of support for VMware ESXi 5 means VMware's top customers are still out of reach. If Microsoft can keep closing the feature gap—through its own innovations or add-ons from its partners—there may come a day when organizations decide that VMware or Citrix's price tags aren't worth it anymore.

Drawing a picture of cloud

We've all looked into the eyes of someone talking about "cloud" and wondered for a moment if we're thinking about the same thing. While there were many excellent talks on how to use System Center 2012 in conjunction with Windows Server to implement the Microsoft Private Cloud, perhaps the most useful was a talk entitled "Why We Fail: An Architect's Journey to the Private Cloud," given by Alex Jauch, an ex-Microsoft Enterprise Architect who now works for NetApp.

Since this was a vendor-sponsored talk, there was naturally the fear that we had been lured into a technology timeshare session. But the packed room quickly found itself nodding along to Jauch's presentation. "Everyone seems to want it," Jauch said about the cloud. "If you talk to senior management in IT organizations, it's very rare to find one that doesn't want cloud. I want some of that cloud stuff. What is that? I don't know, but I want it. OK, here's some crayons, there you go, draw a cloud."

Jauch threw up two statistics for emphasis: a Gartner figure that said 78 percent of enterprise IT shops will deploy a "cloud computing strategy" by 2014; and from CIO.com, the harsh truth that 62 percent of all IT projects fail. Whether you trust the validity of the sources, not a single one of the 200 of us in the audience raised our hand when Jauch asked if there was anyone not feeling pressure to implement cloud solutions in their organizations. It is a scary place to be: feeling pressure to adopt "cloud," not having a sense that the entire organization understands what "cloud" is, and knowing that it is an incredibly risky and complex endeavor with a high probability of failure.

Jauch then went on to explain that many of us would fail in our cloud implementations not because we didn't choose the right product or vendor, but because we would treat the move to private cloud as a technology problem. At its core, he said, "cloud" is about a customer-centric business model, not technology. According to Jauch, "if you proceed along a technology path what are your odds of success? Slim to none."

The message of Jauch's session stood in stark contrast to the magic promised in Anderson's keynote presentation. When he stood brandishing a thumb drive mid-keynote and told us all that with this thumb drive we would have the entire "Microsoft Private Cloud in your pocket," it made cloud sound so easy. "Literally what you can do," said Anderson, "is insert this, answer a handful of questions, go have dinner, come back—the entire Microsoft Private Cloud will be set up and running for you." (The Twitter stream for #mms2012 was quickly filled with comments like "Is that a private cloud in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?")

Reality checks

I skipped lunch to head back to my hotel across the street to see what the Microsoft Private Cloud had to offer. The reality of this pocket cloud test drive was a little different. After going through the Readme file and checking prerequisites, I ran the installation—and it threw an error: "The WinRM settings are not configured correctly."

The error from the thumb drive was, in a way, a perfect microcosm of the state of IT and cloud computing—we're promised simplicity, but we get "some assembly required." Cloud computing and the consumerization of IT are incredibly powerful concepts with enormous potential to make our lives easier, and to save money—but getting from potential to reality isn't always quite as simple as we would like to admit.

The error is also strangely illustrative of why I love coming to MMS. When I Googled the error during my lunch break at the conference, the first result that came up was a Microsoft MVP's personal WordPress blog with a long how-to post (screenshots included) describing how to troubleshoot and resolve the error. No one paid him to write the solution—he just wanted to share what he had learned.

This is the community that MMS brings together from all over the world: IT pros from private industry, Microsoft employees, systems administrators, engineers, developers, IT management, and IT newbies. Everyone comes to learn, share their experiences, network, and—since this was held in Vegas—partake in a fair amount of evening drinking and gambling.

A world of connected devices (and A/V fail)

The other overarching theme of the conference, behind the cloud, was how to support the ever-expanding number and variety of devices users want to be able to work and access corporate data from—the consumerization of IT.

Anderson's second-day keynote was devoted to the topic, and focused on the need to shift from a corporate-controlled model to a more user-centric approach. This is news to no one, but what is news is the degree to which Microsoft is committed to real integration with iOS and Android.

Even a few years ago, it would have been laughable to suggest that you would see an iPhone onstage at a Microsoft event. But there was Brad Anderson, the corporate VP of Microsoft, walking up to the stage to demo the upcoming features of Windows Intune, which will allow the deployment of applications to an iPhone—one Anderson referred to as "my iPhone." And the very fact that Microsoft currently has a beta of Windows Intune that can deploy applications to an iPhone is in itself a huge step forward.

Sadly, the magical feeling was over far too soon. The A/V equipment failed to switch to the phone's screen, leaving Anderson standing helplessly at the podium amid chuckles from the MMS attendees before he recovered and segued to show the same features on a Windows Tablet. They were able to successfully live-demo the iPhone functionality at the end of the talk via an over-the-shoulder camera, though it was almost impossible to see.

Technical difficulties aside, it is encouraging to see Microsoft trying to offer the ability to manage non-Windows devices—considering the current options. But as discussed in the sessions, the reality of what Microsoft offers today for managing non-Windows devices is a bit underwhelming. Configuration Manager 2012 offers some integration with iOS and Android, but only through ActiveSync.

What that means is that administrators can support a large number of devices and generate reports on them. But for now, capabilities like settings management and remote wipe are at best theoretical and device-dependent. More advanced features like software distribution, multiple settings policies, and feedback on whether the settings have actually been applied are still out of reach.

Michael Bullwinkle is a System Engineer at Loyola University of Maryland.

What I think employees really want is for all the services of the business to be available world wide

this doesn't need some 3rd party cloud and many conjer to mind when they hear cloud, but it does require making use of whats out there, ie Outlook anywhere, active sync, edge servers for lync (with proper DNS)

The error is also strangely illustrative of why I love coming to MMS. When I Googled the error during my lunch break at the conference, the first result that came up was a Microsoft MVP's personal WordPress blog with a long how-to post (screenshots included) describing how to troubleshoot and resolve the error. No one paid him to write the solution—he just wanted to share what he had learned.

You get one HELL of a lot more of that OUTSIDE the Microsoft world, I've learned...

MS is putting all this together one piece at a time. They could climb back to relevance with this. It's easy to see how much they owe to Google, Amazon, and VMware for this kind of thing, but I'm cautiously excited that MS seems to be on the right track.

I dream of helping my small clients one day ditch their big, hot, expensive, juice-guzzling servers and move not just their e-mail, but their file and directory services to the cloud, with only a small, efficient gateway machine in the office — if anything.

Thanks very much for the kind review of my session. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Just to clarify, I am a huge fan of what MSFT is doing on the Private Cloud front. I think they really understand the fact that Private Cloud is about management on the technology side. Perhaps I am biased as a former 'softie, but thier management stack is my favorite of all the options going on right now. This is a key reason why I brought up the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program in my talk. That's a good example of a complete solution that's focused on the larger problem. There's some really good stuff going on inside of System Center that makes these things possible.

The lesson I hope to impart is that this is about people, process and technology. I think we all know that, but sometimes we forget the other two parts of the equation. When I started blogging about the people and process aspects of private cloud, I expected everyone to say "yeah, duh Alex." Instead, people were really energized about this subject and that's why I wrote the book.

Thanks again, hope to see you at the next MMS. We'll be at MMS Canada in Toronto for all the folks up in the great white north.

Microsoft is really an amazing company. They are under seige from all sides. On consumer - Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung. In business - IBM, Oracle, VMWare, Salesforce.com, SAP. How can one company conquer all these companies? Only time will tell.

Save money by giving us more of it, on a monthly basis! And it might break or change specifications at random, and you probably wont be able to use it on arbitrary devices and services, but who cares, it's easier!

Save money by giving us more of it, on a monthly basis! And it might break or change specifications at random, and you probably wont be able to use it on arbitrary devices and services, but who cares, it's easier!

Anyone have a link to system requirements for SC2k12? Like, the hardware that needs to be deployed and how many instances of Server 2k8R2 you need to have available. I'd love to play with it in my test environment, but I need to know if its up to snuff. I couldn't find any implementation guides on the MS page for it.

"Clouds, tablets, internet ... damn, I wish all of these fads would just come to pass, so we can get back to devoting our time to desktop computing." - Ballmer

(or at least what I'm guessing Ballmer thought at one time)

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

No, I don't think MS has any problem seeing the future. What they have a problem with is executing faster than their competitors. And thats a huge problem.

"Clouds, tablets, internet ... damn, I wish all of these fads would just come to pass, so we can get back to devoting our time to desktop computing." - Ballmer

(or at least what I'm guessing Ballmer thought at one time)

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

No, I don't think MS has any problem seeing the future. What they have a problem with is executing faster than their competitors. And thats a huge problem.

The problem for Windows Phone was the late start. But when you look at the pace of innovation in WP on the software & hardware side from Oct 2010 to now, it's industry-leading. But when you spot Apple a 4-year lead, there's some catching up to do.

"Clouds, tablets, internet ... damn, I wish all of these fads would just come to pass, so we can get back to devoting our time to desktop computing." - Ballmer

(or at least what I'm guessing Ballmer thought at one time)

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

No, I don't think MS has any problem seeing the future. What they have a problem with is executing faster than their competitors. And thats a huge problem.

Well, Microsoft also has to balance their existing user base with innovation, and that's no small feat if they're going to maintain the sort of backward compatibility that we've come to count on.

I think one of Microsoft's faults is the tendency to overpromise regarding the simplicity of its enterprise products. They may be "simpler" relative to older enterprise solutions, but they are rarely "simple" in absolute terms. Microsoft's aspirations are right, but the marketing sometimes gets out ahead of the product.

That said, Microsoft has done a lot to democratize access to formerly expensive and difficult to use technologies. Even with its stumbles, Microsoft has created compelling value for IT professionals.

Re. the iPhone, what I think you are seeing is a new pragmatism at work which no longer puts Windows at the center of all things. Yes, perhaps they've been forced there kicking and screaming, but no matter; it's a welcome change.

Anyone have a link to system requirements for SC2k12? Like, the hardware that needs to be deployed and how many instances of Server 2k8R2 you need to have available. I'd love to play with it in my test environment, but I need to know if its up to snuff. I couldn't find any implementation guides on the MS page for it.

"Clouds, tablets, internet ... damn, I wish all of these fads would just come to pass, so we can get back to devoting our time to desktop computing." - Ballmer

(or at least what I'm guessing Ballmer thought at one time)

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

No, I don't think MS has any problem seeing the future. What they have a problem with is executing faster than their competitors. And thats a huge problem.

The problem for Windows Phone was the late start. But when you look at the pace of innovation in WP on the software & hardware side from Oct 2010 to now, it's industry-leading. But when you spot Apple a 4-year lead, there's some catching up to do.

I'm pretty sure that was my point, they have the right idea but they have been consistently late to the party over the past decade, even when they came up with the ideas first!

Save money by giving us more of it, on a monthly basis! And it might break or change specifications at random, and you probably wont be able to use it on arbitrary devices and services, but who cares, it's easier!

This cloud bullshit only benefits IT companies.

The 'cloud' is a perfectly good tool that is great for certain cases.

A great example is educational systems. A small school with 1k students probably can't afford a Network admin, a Server admin, a data storage admin, and a few hundred-thousand of hardware. What they can afford is $200/month to host their services in the cloud and an IT person.

Save money by giving us more of it, on a monthly basis! And it might break or change specifications at random, and you probably wont be able to use it on arbitrary devices and services, but who cares, it's easier!

This cloud bullshit only benefits IT companies.

The 'cloud' is a perfectly good tool that is great for certain cases.

A great example is educational systems. A small school with 1k students probably can't afford a Network admin, a Server admin, a data storage admin, and a few hundred-thousand of hardware. What they can afford is $200/month to host their services in the cloud and an IT person.

Plus, at its best, it lets infrastructure people be infrastructure people and software people be software people. For an enterprise, it's a godsend to allow software devs to manage their own apps without having to worry about server provisioning, permissions, etc.

The error is also strangely illustrative of why I love coming to MMS. When I Googled the error during my lunch break at the conference, the first result that came up was a Microsoft MVP's personal WordPress blog with a long how-to post (screenshots included) describing how to troubleshoot and resolve the error. No one paid him to write the solution—he just wanted to share what he had learned.

You get one HELL of a lot more of that OUTSIDE the Microsoft world, I've learned...

Sure, I had a customer with an Oracle issue that got a couple rooms full of developers parked on their campus for 6 months.

And then the bills started arriving and that CIO was gone.

At least with Microsoft they have a fumble-ready product that most intelligent folks can troubleshoot with a sharp browser and a sense of adventure. And a large ecosystem of partners of all types so you can find one that fits your business if you know how to partner well.

If you want more, get more! Just realize that it's generally a partner that will go that extra mile unless you are big enough that MS cares about your account directly.

The error is also strangely illustrative of why I love coming to MMS. When I Googled the error during my lunch break at the conference, the first result that came up was a Microsoft MVP's personal WordPress blog with a long how-to post (screenshots included) describing how to troubleshoot and resolve the error. No one paid him to write the solution—he just wanted to share what he had learned.

You get one HELL of a lot more of that OUTSIDE the Microsoft world, I've learned...

Sure, I had a customer with an Oracle issue that got a couple rooms full of developers parked on their campus for 6 months.

And then the bills started arriving and that CIO was gone.

At least with Microsoft they have a fumble-ready product that most intelligent folks can troubleshoot with a sharp browser and a sense of adventure. And a large ecosystem of partners of all types so you can find one that fits your business if you know how to partner well.

If you want more, get more! Just realize that it's generally a partner that will go that extra mile unless you are big enough that MS cares about your account directly.

The problem with managing ipads and iphones is that apple themselves only has a few ways to do it built into IOS .How can microsoft do this if apple themselves does not let you do much.

I am an IT admin in a library and we are looking into locking down ipads to loan out inside the library. Apple themselves only really allows you to lockdown install and delete of apps. everything else can be remotely set but the user can just go into the settings and change them back.

You can bash microsoft for not having configuration manager do this BUT they can't do much till apple themselves allows more remote lockdown abilities inside ios itself .

You will say well use apple configurator or iphone configuration utility but a lot of these settings can be changed by the user after the fact.

The error is also strangely illustrative of why I love coming to MMS. When I Googled the error during my lunch break at the conference, the first result that came up was a Microsoft MVP's personal WordPress blog with a long how-to post (screenshots included) describing how to troubleshoot and resolve the error. No one paid him to write the solution—he just wanted to share what he had learned.

You get one HELL of a lot more of that OUTSIDE the Microsoft world, I've learned...

Sure, I had a customer with an Oracle issue that got a couple rooms full of developers parked on their campus for 6 months.

And then the bills started arriving and that CIO was gone.

At least with Microsoft they have a fumble-ready product that most intelligent folks can troubleshoot with a sharp browser and a sense of adventure. And a large ecosystem of partners of all types so you can find one that fits your business if you know how to partner well.

If you want more, get more! Just realize that it's generally a partner that will go that extra mile unless you are big enough that MS cares about your account directly.

That is why if you are a small company you buy a volume license of technet. Its more worth it for the 2 free tech support calls then the software.

Save money by giving us more of it, on a monthly basis! And it might break or change specifications at random, and you probably wont be able to use it on arbitrary devices and services, but who cares, it's easier!

This cloud bullshit only benefits IT companies.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Actually, that's pretty much a summary of my experience with VMware. I have had two product lines get EOL'd on me now. That is after months or years of not updating even to correct common problems in "supported" environments.

My question is: How well does all this work in a mixed environment in the data center?

"Clouds, tablets, internet ... damn, I wish all of these fads would just come to pass, so we can get back to devoting our time to desktop computing." - Ballmer

(or at least what I'm guessing Ballmer thought at one time)

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

No, I don't think MS has any problem seeing the future. What they have a problem with is executing faster than their competitors. And thats a huge problem.

Microsoft produced a crappy tablet experience. It was Bill's baby, and he couldn't get the Office team to make a tablet version of Office. The tablet team had to figure out how to get the on-screen keyboard to show-hide properly because of this. It wasn't a "how can we improve computing" idea, it was a "where else can we shove Windows". If Microsoft had put ANY real effort into tablet computing, Apple would not have walked in and sold more iPads in a few months than all other tablets EVER sold.

As for TCP/IP, Microsoft only reluctantly made it a separate download for Windows 95, because they REALLY wanted people to use a Microsoft-proprietary network stack.

Microsoft doesn't think in terms of "How can we make this better for the end-user". It's "How can we get more money from this user".

Case in point: Microsoft's newly announced licensing model for Win RT, where "Virtual Desktop Access" licenses are included with Win RT, but non-Win RT users need to pay a whack of extra money.

Microsoft produced a crappy tablet experience. It was Bill's baby, and he couldn't get the Office team to make a tablet version of Office. The tablet team had to figure out how to get the on-screen keyboard to show-hide properly because of this. It wasn't a "how can we improve computing" idea, it was a "where else can we shove Windows". If Microsoft had put ANY real effort into tablet computing, Apple would not have walked in and sold more iPads in a few months than all other tablets EVER sold.

Or, you know, they just did it wrong. Because companies make mistakes. MS focused thier tablet efforts on corporate needs rather than consumer needs, and this is how they failed. Apple went from the consumer market and moved towards the business side, which was a successful strategy. Probably the largest issue with Microsoft's approach was their refusal to consider capacitive touch screens, sticking with resistive and thus requiring a stylus.

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As for TCP/IP, Microsoft only reluctantly made it a separate download for Windows 95, because they REALLY wanted people to use a Microsoft-proprietary network stack.

The problem with managing ipads and iphones is that apple themselves only has a few ways to do it built into IOS .How can microsoft do this if apple themselves does not let you do much...I am an IT admin in a library and we are looking into locking down ipads to loan out inside the library. Apple themselves only really allows you to lockdown install and delete of apps. everything else can be remotely set but the user can just go into the settings and change them back.

I agree completely that Apple is behind on offering out-of-box enterprise management functionality to their own devices. With that said there are third-party companies that offer fairly robust advanced management capabilities. I am more just waiting for Microsoft to buy one of them and incorporate the functionality into System Center.

While client side device management falls to a different group in my organization, I know that our mobile device guy manages everything via a solution made by a company called AirWatch.

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

Only if you define Microsoft's solution as being a turning point is Microsoft then an 'early player'. TCP/IP was developed in the late 1970s and rolled out in the early 1980s but IP stacks for any Microsoft operating system were only available from third parties until what, 1995? Novell Netware was shipping IP and NFS in the late 1980s, DEC was shipping IP in the 1980s, Apple's domain name registration proceeds Microsoft by five years. Hotmail was an acquisition, ran on and probably still runs on FreeBSD. Azure wasn't early to much; grids and virtualization of all sorts preceded it and people have been remotely logging into computation as a service for decades.

MS was one of the earliest players in the tablet space, I had a Compaq tablet with Windows 3.11 for Pen Computing on it back in the mid-90's. MS also pivoted on the internet inside of one year back in 1995 (and wrote a book about it from BillG). They were one of the earliest corporate adopters of TCP/IP as well. And as for the cloud, Azure is one of the earliest solutions, System Center has been around for some time, and they ran some of the earliest 'cloud' solutions before they were called cloud solutions. Hotmail, Microsoft MyPhone, etc.

Only if you define Microsoft's solution as being a turning point is Microsoft then an 'early player'. TCP/IP was developed in the late 1970s and rolled out in the early 1980s but IP stacks for any Microsoft operating system were only available from third parties until what, 1995? Novell Netware was shipping IP and NFS in the late 1980s, DEC was shipping IP in the 1980s, Apple's domain name registration proceeds Microsoft by five years. Hotmail was an acquisition, ran on and probably still runs on FreeBSD. Azure wasn't early to much; grids and virtualization of all sorts preceded it and people have been remotely logging into computation as a service for decades.

Finding random examples of people who preceded specific changes attempts to hide the forest in favor of the trees. Nobody said they were the absolute 'first' or 'only in their time. But they were among the first, they were doing these things when it was not the conventional wisdom. They migrated their internal network to TCP/IP when virtually everyone else was using Netware. It was a big deal at the time(and TCP/IP on Netware sucked). Also, Hotmail has not run on BSD since 2001 when they retired the last of the legacy servers, its all Azure based now. And finally, yes pieces of the cloud predated Azure, whats your point? Hotmail is itself the original cloud service from a consumer point of view. Azure was built on the integration of various pre-existing technologies into a cloud solution, just like everyone else's cloud offering was built(S3/AWS was Amazon's existing solution made available to third parties, for instance).

Only if you define Microsoft's solution as being a turning point is Microsoft then an 'early player'. TCP/IP was developed in the late 1970s and rolled out in the early 1980s but IP stacks for any Microsoft operating system were only available from third parties until what, 1995? Novell Netware was shipping IP and NFS in the late 1980s, DEC was shipping IP in the 1980s, Apple's domain name registration proceeds Microsoft by five years. Hotmail was an acquisition, ran on and probably still runs on FreeBSD. Azure wasn't early to much; grids and virtualization of all sorts preceded it and people have been remotely logging into computation as a service for decades.

Finding random examples of people who preceded specific changes attempts to hide the forest in favor of the trees. Nobody said they were the absolute 'first' or 'only in their time. But they were among the first, they were doing these things when it was not the conventional wisdom. They migrated their internal network to TCP/IP when virtually everyone else was using Netware. It was a big deal at the time(and TCP/IP on Netware sucked).

There were many microcomputer networking companies by the end of the 1970s but Microsoft was not one of them. Microsoft didn't ship an IP stack until 1994, and didn't have much marketshare until they bundled it with Windows 95 in 1995.

By the late 1980s everyone else was using NFS, which always used IP. The NFS NLM for Netware 3.x was so fast that it led to the founding of Network Appliance, if I'm not mistaken. Microcomputers used NCSA Telnet and its IP stack on DOS from 1986 and NCSA Mosaic since 1994. Many companies provided IP stacks and PC-NFS clients for Microsoft operating systems long before Microsoft did so.

There were many microcomputer networking companies by the end of the 1970s but Microsoft was not one of them. Microsoft didn't ship an IP stack until 1994, and didn't have much marketshare until they bundled it with Windows 95 in 1995.

Microsoft barely existed in the 70's and did not have an OS till the early 80's(they were a compiler/programming language company). Yes, companies that were not in the OS or networking business did not have shipping TCP/IP stacks, news at 11. When Microsoft developed their first network centric OS, Windows NT 3.1 in 1993, they included a TCP/IP stack. In other words: The day they had a relevant product for the market they equipped it with TCP/IP support. I have no idea how you could expect them to do it any sooner than "from the beginning of their entrance into network aware operating systems".

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By the late 1980s everyone else was using NFS, which always used IP. The NFS NLM for Netware 3.x was so fast that it led to the founding of Network Appliance, if I'm not mistaken.

Netware did not build in native TCP/IP support until Netware 5, the 3.x version was not native, was not fast, and barely permitted basic communications. I was certified in the Netware 3.x line back then, and trying to set up a TCP/IP based network based on Netware would have been idiotic.

Microsoft did not provide a networked operating system until 1992 with Windows for Workgroups 3.1. NCSA Mosiac was not released until 1993, and until that point there was no reason for the typical user to have any need of TCP/IP. Six months after Mosaic was released, Windows NT 3.1 was released, and included native TCP/IP support. 18 months after Mosiac was released, Windows 95 was released and included native TCP/IP support. These seem like fairly reasonable turnaround times, both from a consumer and corporate perspective. In fact, both are better than the current turnaround time they've shown, where it took them three years to respond to the iPhone.

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http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~gillies/9802net.html

IE 1.0 was a rebranded version of another company's commercialized Mosaic browser for Windows, that's how far ahead Microsoft was with IP and Internetworking.

So? Lots of technologies in Windows are licensed or purchased from other companies. The same goes for OS X and other commercial operating systems. Like most companies, when it is clear they need to add a capability they see who the players are and determine if it is better to purchase, license or develop in house. Often something they license ends up getting replaced with in-house development when the market is sufficiently sized to make the effort worthwhile.

At its core, he said, "cloud" is about a customer-centric business model, not technology.

Cloud means several things. When it comes to IaaS, cloud is about applying a Service Oriented Architecture to infrastructure. SOA is a large part of AaaS as well.

[AJ] Yep. Definately agree. It means all those things. One of the things that I said in the talk was that cloud had almost infinate meaning. SOA was definately a precursor to much of what is going on in the cloud space today. The point I was trying to make is that the biggest change cloud brings is this customer centric business model which I think is very transformative to IT.

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According to Jauch, "if you proceed along a technology path what are your odds of success? Slim to none."What's that supposed to mean?

I think the full quote was "This is a business problem, not a technology problem. If you proceed along a technology path..."

There's some context there that you can't really get from the quote. I was trying to point out that this is about people, process and technology. If you forget the first two, you'll have problems. Not saying technology isn't hugely important, just saying that we focus a bit too much on that aspect.